The next morning, Donnie woke up with light streaming in through the broken ceiling of the tower's south chamber.
He hadn't remembered falling asleep.
Mara was already gone.
A note sat beside him on a cracked stone bench, folded twice and sealed with a trace mark shaped like a spiral caught mid-collapse.
He opened it.
> "The node is now protected. I'll be gone for a few days. There's someone I need to speak to. If anyone comes—don't fight. Not yet. Listen. And remember: the moment they say your name too loud, the system starts listening."
—M
Donnie stared at that last sentence.
> "The moment they say your name too loud…"
He didn't fully understand what it meant.
But he folded the note carefully and placed it inside his sketchpad, alongside every design he'd drawn since leaving Ridgewood.
Then he stood.
And began to move.
---
Veera traveled north through the outer region—crossing farmlands, broken roads, and clusters of abandoned infrastructure half-swallowed by nature.
She didn't have Donnie's skill with cloaking signatures or trace-null devices. But she had something else:
Determination.
Every checkpoint she passed, she offered no explanation—only her Trace Band and a silent look. Most didn't argue. Not with a red-flagged student showing that kind of certainty.
She reached the forest outpost by noon.
Beyond it was a climb—up a ridge path mostly forgotten.
But she had seen the coordinates in the file Donnie left behind.
Outpost Nine.
That was where he was headed.
---
At the tower, Donnie wasn't alone anymore.
Two figures stood at the edge of the lower courtyard.
Both were dressed plainly. No trace armor. No insignia. But they weren't casual.
You could tell from how they stood—shoulders angled toward one another, hands never far from their bands, breathing controlled.
The taller of the two raised a hand.
"We're not here to fight."
Donnie didn't move.
"We were sent by someone who walked this path before you," the man continued.
Donnie narrowed his eyes. "Who?"
"Name was Cale. Used to build trace-construct illusions. Got taken by the Guild six years ago. Nobody's seen him since. But before they found him, he sent us a message."
Donnie crossed his arms.
"What kind of message?"
The second figure—shorter, more rigid—spoke.
"That if another wild thread emerged, we help them build a voice."
Donnie raised an eyebrow. "A voice?"
"Not volume. Not speeches. Just presence."
The taller one nodded. "Too many of us burn out in silence. That's how they control it. We're here to make sure you don't vanish."
Donnie relaxed slightly.
"Then why now?"
"Because you've survived longer than anyone they've marked this hard."
---
Elsewhere—far beyond the range of Ridgewood's towers or even Guild satellites—a man watched through an old terminal that wasn't connected to any official network.
He was older. Hair tied back in a gray knot. One eye cybernetic. The other—piercing, human.
A trace screen flickered silently.
Donnie's profile rotated in 3D.
> "RE-EVALUATION REQUESTED – SUBJECT: REEVE, DONNIE"
> Classification: Unranked
Pattern: Break Arc | Vanta-Type
Known Traces: Spiral Surge, Shatterstep, Collapse Edge, Crimson Bloom, Halo Line
The old man leaned forward.
"He's missing the final tier," he said softly.
A woman beside him adjusted the lens display. "He's still building it."
The old man's jaw tensed.
"Then we pray he doesn't finish before the others find him."
---
Veera reached the ridge by late afternoon.
Sweat clung to her arms, but her expression stayed firm. She passed three cracked markers etched with trace glyphs—outdated warnings meant to deter students and travelers.
They didn't scare her.
At the fourth marker, her Trace Band blinked.
> "Field Null Zone Ahead. Band Functionality Will Drop to 14%."
She tightened her straps and pressed on.
It didn't matter if her trace failed.
She wasn't climbing to fight.
She was climbing to find someone who hadn't stopped fighting.
---
Back at the tower, Donnie stood before the two strangers.
"So what do you want from me?" he asked.
The shorter one answered first.
"Nothing."
"We don't want a leader," the other added. "We want a signal."
"A signal?"
"That you're still moving. That someone is still pushing. If you vanish—like the rest—they'll bury every trace you left behind."
Donnie's voice lowered. "And if I don't?"
"Then more might follow."
He didn't respond.
Not right away.
Then:
"You can stay. For now."
---
At dusk, Veera reached the final slope—and froze.
The tower stood in the distance.
Donnie stood outside it.
Not injured.
Not hiding.
Just… standing in the open, talking to two people she didn't recognize.
And for the first time in days, Veera smiled.
Then collapsed forward from exhaustion.
---
Donnie caught the movement a second before she dropped.
He ran, leapt the platform steps, and reached her just as she sank to one knee.
"Veera?!"
She looked up, blinking through sweat and dirt.
"Found you."
Donnie grabbed her arms, half-laughing, half-stunned. "What are you doing here?!"
"You left," she whispered. "I didn't."
He didn't say anything.
Not at first.
He just helped her to her feet, held her longer than he probably needed to.
Then he asked, voice low:
"Are you in this? Really in it?"
Veera met his eyes.
"I've been in it since you first moved different."
---
That night, Donnie lit a small trace field on the cliff wall for warmth. Veera rested near it, her breathing steady now.
The two visitors stayed at the edge of the platform, silent but respectful.
Donnie opened his sketchpad.
He began a new page.
This one wasn't just movement charts.
It was names.
People.
Zero. Kaito. Lora. Veera. Mara. The strangers. The ones who hadn't vanished.
At the top of the page, in small, clear letters, he wrote:
> "This is not a rebellion. This is recognition."
He stared at it for a long time.
Then added:
> "Recognition begins when silence ends."
---
End of Chapter 16
© Anthony Osifo 2025 – All rights reserved.